


The Ukulele King of the World

by rockthecliche



Category: Johnny's Entertainment, KAT-TUN (Band), NewS (Band)
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-03
Updated: 2012-02-03
Packaged: 2017-10-30 13:34:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/332279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rockthecliche/pseuds/rockthecliche
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their circumstances are ever changing, but at least they’ll always be them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ukulele King of the World

**Author's Note:**

> Um, this is my first time writing Pin (or Pi in general) in any shape or form, and probably will be my last. 8D Written for the JE Holiday fic exchange.

There are days where he has no idea what Jin is doing, what Jin’s thinking, or hell, why Jin even thinks everything is going to go swimmingly.

It’s daring, what Jin’s doing. Others call him selfish, even more commend him for going against the typical Johnny’s grain and gravitating towards something he really, truly wants. And as his best friend, Pi is thrilled. Jin’s been going on and on and _on_ about it for years.

Whether it’s something Jin deserves or not – that was completely debatable.

What he _does_ know, though, is that it is something only Jin could ever do.

Jin lives the sort of lifestyle Pi sometimes wishes he could. And as his best friend, Pi knows that no matter what Jin decides to outwardly project, he still has (and will always have) his reservations, his nerves, his moments of panic that comes in the form of desperate phone calls at four in the morning Tokyo time, international calling charges be damned.

As his best friend, Pi dutifully wakes up, ignores his body’s plea for more sleep and answers the phone, leaning back onto his bed. He idly wonders if Jin will notice he’s trying to bury himself back into his comforter from across the world.

In the background, there are voices, some of them familiar, others not-so-familiar. He can hear Joey’s distinct laugh, the soft smiles inherent in girly giggles, the brash laugh of Jin’s self-appointed concert emcee. Pi tries to entertain the idea of possibly hanging up, but it doesn’t work out so well.

“Are you aware that it’s four in the morning?” Pi says, mouth still not working properly enough so he’s sure it just sounds like a bunch of babble.

“What? Oh,” Jin’s voice crackles amidst some white noise and static. “Shit, I forgot about the time difference. Sorry, just go back to bed.”

“Forget it, I’m up now.” Pi says before his mind even tries to tell him that hanging up and going back to bed is exactly what he needs. “What’s up?”

“I’m, uh,” Jin says, and Pi can practically hear him scratch absentmindedly at his arm through the satellite connection linking them up. “I’m early to this MTV thing, so.”

“…so you decided to call me.” Pi yawns.

“New York City’s still pretty awesome.” Jin counters, changing the subject.

“Mmhmm. How early are you?” Pi asks, checking his alarm clock. He tries to calculate the time difference, but gives up halfway and just assumes it’s four in the afternoon over there.

“Oh, you know…an hour or three. Or two.”

“Wow. That’s pretty impressive.” Pi says, his curiosity taking over. “What does the studio look like?”

“…yeah, see, I’m so early that I’m not even in the building yet.” Jin sounds embarrassed, although Pi can’t really tell as Jin also has a bad habit of fidgeting a lot, and that makes a lot of weird crinkling noises into the phone. “We’re all getting something to eat first.”

“Should Ryo-chan and I place bets on how much weight you’ve gained?”

“You say that now,” Jin laughs and Pi smiles for the first time since answering the phone. “But wait until I bring you back with me one day. These Five Guys burgers are the _best_.”

 

Pi never makes it to New York. He makes it to a bunch of other places, though, like Hong Kong and Thailand and back to Taipei and even Seoul (with a surplus of security). In some ways, he thinks this must be what Jin felt when he walked through the gates of America by himself. The thought only lasts for six seconds because Pi goes on his Asia tour as “Yamashita Tomohisa of NEWS” and the difference is as vast as comparing a Doberman and a rhinoceros. The only thing they have in common is that both have eyelashes. Pi only knows this because of Massu’s random, trivia filled mind.

“You’re going to get eaten alive this time by the Korean fangirls,” says Jin’s text message to him as he’s getting ready for his show.

“Rhinos are docile!” Pi texts back. He gets no word back and it isn’t until he’s on stage, singing a soulful rendition of ‘mola’, that he realizes his text didn’t even make any sense.

 

They wait until Pi gets back from all his activities abroad to compare weight gain. Ryo wins the entire shebang, placing his bets on Jin’s weight gain filling out his entire frame, whereas Pi’s added pounds go right to his ass, and some to his already ample chest.

 

“We should do a duet or something,” Jin says, flinging a piece of scrap paper at Pi’s head.

“A duet?” Pi chuckles, leaving the piece of paper alone for now, although it’s stuck in his hair somewhere. “You make it sound like it’d be some cheesy love ballad.”

“A song for us! It’d be perfect,” Jin replies, lolling about on Pi’s sofa. “Full of flailing diva hands and saucy hip rolls. The fans would never see it coming.”

“I have ‘Seishun Amigo’ for that,” Pi deadpans.

“You’re missing the point entirely.” Jin presses, now taking to flicking the back of Pi’s head. “Maybe not a _love ballad_ , but just – a collaboration. Just us two and some sweet beats.”

It would be nice, Pi thinks, because he’s pretty used to just writing songs himself – even “Share” was less collaborative and more “individual parts sewn together” – and if he were to choose someone to do one with, it would be Jin, no doubt. And it would be fun because Jin is crazy when he’s in the midst of the writing process, full of restless energy and excitement – when he’s not whining or panicking about deadlines and the like.

And…well, it’d just be nice. Pi could make it Jin’s custom ringtone on his phone, and Jin’s only.

Unfortunately, those aren’t the words that escape his lips when he wants to say something in return. He says, “Ryo-chan would be jealous!”

As Jin whacks him with a pillow, going on about how Ryo and his fancy guitars have no business in a pop/hip-hop collaboration, Pi thinks he’s okay with leaving Ryo out, just this once.

 

“Let’s sing about…”

“Curry?”

“New York!”

“…New York curry?”

“There was something called Manhattan clam chowder?”

“What _is_ that?”

“I don’t know, didn’t try it! I think it has clam.”

“Obviously. …now I’m hungry.”

Pause.

“Yakiniku?”

“Yeah.”

 

Once they sit down and focus, once the novelty of actually working together wears off, and once they have actual ideas instead of random and ridiculous notions, though, the work takes off. Jin’s lyrics are drawn straight from past experiences and inside jokes, some of which Pi has to think about for a few seconds before remembering, but they make it work out somehow. Pi takes over the tune and instrumentation; he doesn’t think a thumping dance club track would be good for this, given the lyrics – no, something a little more fun, light-hearted, smile friendly.

“If we’re going for something like that,” Jin says one day while they’re in the recording studio, creating and mixing tracks. “Then I want a ukulele intro.”

Pi stares at him for a few moments. “…a ukulele intro.”

“Did I stutter?” Jin replies.

“Do you even know how to play the ukulele?”

“No,” Jin starts, then grins big. “But I’m convinced that if I taught myself how to play it, then I could single-handedly rule the world.”

“I guess you should get cracking on that, then. The world might need saving in a year or two.” Pi says, turning back to the mixing board.

Three weeks later, the song is done. It’s catchy, it’s something that’s supposed to make people shimmy in their cars if they ever were to listen to it, and it’s fun, lively, bright and cheerful. And as the first few notes of a simple ukulele melody filters out from hi-definition speakers, Pi shakes his head. Jin nearly falls off the couch and onto the floor with laughter.

 

An official release of the song is more than impossible and they both know it, but it doesn't stop them from making references to it in jwebs and interviews, giving the fans (and the other members of the agency) just a tiny hint of something that was theirs and theirs only. But when Jin mentions to Pi that he’s going to show up at a NEWS con that autumn, Pi decides that maybe it should see the light of day. And so, for that one night, Pi shares his solo time with Jin; they wear grass skirts over their jeans and Pi indulges the fans in wearing a coconut bra over his t-shirt. Jin hops around grasping a ukulele in his hand and they put on a mock debut. They call themselves "JT" and they sing their four minute song about car shrimps, beloved momo's, collarbone abuse, impromptu sleepovers -- an ode to each other.

Backstage, Pi and Jin laugh long and hard as Ryo goes on after them and spends an entire minute whining about being left out.

 

“It’s good that you have people who are supporting you every step of the way,” Pi says to Jin at the airport, the day the other leaves for LA again. “But don’t forget about your original Jincrew, all right?”

Jin rolls his eyes, nudges him in the stomach. “Idiot. As if I could.”

There’s a video of Pi in Jin’s next American tour. It’s pretty simple – Pi is talking at the camera in carefully rehearsed English, thanking everyone for supporting Jin when he’s away from home. He means it; he understands how lonely Jin can get even when he’s surrounded by a room full of people, especially when he’s now facing off against the practically impenetrable American music industry. And even though a large majority of Jin’s friends can’t exactly take time off from their own work schedules to follow Jin around America – even though Pi would love to – a simple message would work. It’s _something_ , at least. Something to remind each other that they’re always there.


End file.
